Satellite Media Tours, or SMTs, are a broadcast public relations ticket to massive media exposure and one of the most effective ways to get your book, product, or service featured in television, radio and online programs with today’s complex media environment. Whether you’ve been involved with SMTs in the past or you are brand new to satellite media tours, here are some basics about how they work and what you need to know to ensure media success..

Satellite Media Tours Offer Massive Media Exposure. Satellite Media Tours, or SMTs, can place your product in a news or lifestyle program to give it the same visibility as news and enhance its position in the market by featuring it as a “newsworthy” item. In fact, no amount of advertising can give your product or brand the same credibility that an editorial feature can. CMP Media Café offers over twenty years of live television and Satellite Media Tour production experience, providing studio and remote SMT production services for Fortune 500 companies, PR Agencies, non-profit organizations, authors/publishers, celebrities, and healthcare firms. We specialize in working with clients to develop the right news angle for your SMT story or corporate message and we find that the most effective SMTs are information or problem-solving driven — presenting the client’s company or product as the solution to a problem.

CMP Media Café produces highly successful 15-to-25-city SMT events reaching approximately two million viewers or more. We can produce a tour exclusive for your product or we can co-op your product with other non-competitive companies in order to reduce the overall budget. Your total cost of an SMT depends on the location, satellite time and uplinks (for in-studio or remote locations), spokesperson fees, etc. Our fees include complete concept and script development, coordination and production of the tour, complete station booking, satellite feeds, and monitoring reports. If you need to find the right spokesperson, we can conduct a spokesperson search for an additional fee.

How SMTs Work. A Satellite Media Tour, or SMT, is a series of pre-booked interviews conducted via satellite with a spokesperson in one city and television station reporters in selected cities across the country. The spokesperson speaks from one location in our Los Angeles or New York studio (or any studio or location in the country or around the world) and we electronically switch the spokesperson in sequence from one station to another, conducting live or taped one-on-one interviews with local reporters. In essence, a spokesperson can visit 15-to-25 cities in a matter of hours instead of weeks, and this gives your company immediate access to the news media. Each interview is approximately two-to-three minutes in length.

Find a Good Media Hook. Factors that influence news producers in booking a satellite media tour including a newsworthy topic, the popularity and credibility of the featured spokesperson or expert, an exciting location, and the ability to make the segment “teaseworthy” to interest viewers to tune into their broadcast. Also, in today’s sensitive sponsorship environment, the client sponsoring the segment and how they present their message is becoming an increasing component to booking a successful SMT.

The Spokesperson is Key. The spokesperson chosen for the SMT should be either a nationally recognized personality, an authority on the topic or expert in the industry, or a person who has had a personal experience with the product and who has media “bookability” and experience. CMP Media Café also provides SMT media training for your selected spokesperson in order to prepare them completely for the tour (additional fees apply). Depending on the spokesperson’s media experience, media training may be absolutely essential for a successful tour.

Monitoring Audience Reach Results. Through closed captioning and personal follow-up with tv stations, we are able to report how many stations aired the interview, the airdates, audience reach viewership numbers, and estimated publicity value of the project. Monitoring reports are issued daily for the first five business days after the initial SMT airdate and weekly when there’s additional activity for a total 4-week reporting period. Contact us at 213-986-8070 for more information.

Hiring a Company to Produce Your SMT. CMP Media Cafe has two decades of experience producing live television and satellite media tours featuring celebrities, Fortune 500 client products, medical breakthroughs and more in partnership with public relations agencies across the country. Contact us at 213-986-8070 for a free consultation on your satellite media tour idea or to see if it’s a good fit for your media campaign.